Category Archives: Election 2017

Acting Mayor London Breed may not hang onto her gig very long, if some members of the Board of Supervisors have their way.

Though The City has hardly had time to mourn the death of Mayor Ed Lee — may he rest in peace — the supervisors are already considering who may lead San Francisco during a tumultuous election cycle.

Lee’s death accelerated the November 2019 mayor’s race to an incredibly early June 2018, catapulting the potential for early political conflict.

To avoid giving any one mayoral candidate a leg up in the race — including rumored candidates like Breed and supervisors Mark Farrell and Jane Kim — the board may vote to instate a “caretaker” mayor, who would pledge not to run…(more)

Some rather detailed thoughts on the subject and the strategy being contemplated to effect change or at least make change a little more likely as we rush into a much more volatile and active June 2017 ballot due to Mayor Lee’s early departure. The Mayor’s race will add more fuel to the other ballot initiatives and a larger number of people will be voting than we assumed.

RELATED:

Candidates begin to file for SF’s June mayor race

By Joshua Sabatinit :sfexaminer – excerpt

Candidates are already beginning to step forward in the unexpected June 2018 mayor’s race in San Francisco following the death of Mayor Ed Lee on Tuesday.

Amy Farrah Weiss, who unsuccessfully ran against Lee’s re-election bid in 2015, pulled papers Friday to run for mayor in June. Not surprisingly, former state Sen. Mark Leno had pulled papers Thursday to run, after having already launched a campaign to run for mayor in November 2019…

Other lesser known residents have pulled papers to throw their hats into the ring, including Richie Greenberg, who was unsuccessful candidate in the District 1 2016 race for the Board of Supervisors, William Daugherty, who is formerly homeless, and Brianna Elizabeth Varner…

The deadline to file for the June contest is also Jan. 9, by 5 p.m…(more)

A book and a film for people who don’t know what is happening to their city.

The Financialization of Housing – A political economy approachBy Manuel B. Aalbers

Due to the financialization of housing in today’s market, housing risks are increasingly becoming financial risks. Financialization refers to the increasing dominance of financial actors, markets, practices, measurements and narratives. It also refers to the resulting structural transformation of economies, firms, states and households. This book asserts the centrality of housing to the contemporary capitalist political economy and places housing at the centre of the financialization debate.

A global wall of money is looking for High-Quality Collateral (HQC) investments, and housing is one of the few asset classes considered HQC. This explains why housing is increasingly becoming financialized, but it does not explain its timing, politics and geography. Presenting a diverse range of case studies from the US, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Spain, the chapters in this book include coverage of the role of the state as the driver of financialization processes, and the part played by local and national histories and institutions. This cutting edge volume will pave the way for future research in the area.

Where housing used to be something “local” or “national”, the two-way coupling of housing to finance has been one crucial element in the recent crisis. It is time to reconsider the financialization of both homeownership and social housing. This book will be of interest to those who study international economics, economic geography and financialization… (more)

It’s official: The rent in California, not just San Francisco, is too damn high.

California now has the highest poverty rate in the nation when the cost of housing is taken into account. Since 2005, more than 2.5 million Californians have been forced to leave the state in search of an affordable home.

Unfortunately, the prevailing supply and demand — “just build” — mantra put forward by opinion leaders is diverting state government from the hard truth that the market has not responded to the demand of California families for affordable homes — not luxury and market-rate homes.

We are told a big lie, that the solution to our housing crisis is to get government out of the way and leave it to the free market to let affordable housing magically “trickle down” to lower-income households. The truth, though, is developers build to make a profit, not to provide a social need. Luxury housing doesn’t trickle down, at least not at a scale to bring down rents in a meaningful way…(more)

Other countries take a different approach to values…

In World’s Best-Run Economy, House Prices Keep Falling — Because That’s What House Prices Are Supposed To Do

When Americans travel abroad, the culture shocks tend to be unpleasant. Robert Locke’s experience was different. In buying a charming if rundown house in the picturesque German town of Goerlitz, he was surprised – very pleasantly – to find city officials second-guessing the deal. The price he had agreed was too high, they said, and in short order they forced the seller to reduce it by nearly one-third. The officials had the seller’s number because he had previously promised to renovate the property and had failed to follow through…(more)

The Board of Supes rejected a hotel project on Hyde Street today, sending a clear message that a residential building where tenants have been displaced by fire can’t be turned into another use.

It was also a sharp rebuke to the four Planning Commission members who were appointed by Mayor Ed Lee….

“This would be a policy statement that we don’t believe in the rights of tenants to return,” Peskin said. “This would be a statement that it’s okay to have a fire and tell people you can change the use and not allow return.”

He noted that “this is a teachable moment” for planning staff and the commission.

It’s rare for the supes to do this. I hope the Planning Commission (and the mayor) was listening… (more)

Robots are becoming so skilled, some experts believe nearly half of all human jobs could be at risk in the decades ahead.

PALO ALTO, Calif. (KGO) – They’re delivering pizzas in San Francisco, parking cars in L.A., and serving up lattes in crowded coffee shops. In fact, robots are becoming so skilled, some experts believe nearly half of all human jobs could be at risk in the decades ahead.

“The most important thing we should understand is that this is potentially an enormous disruption,” says Bay Area futurist Martin Ford.

Ford predicted as much in his bestselling book, “Rise of the Robots.”

“The key thing that makes a job vulnerable is the nature of the work. Is it something that’s fundamentally routine and predictable,” he says.

State Senator Scott Wiener has written a powerful letter accusing nonprofit housing leaders of providing “significant misinformation” about Wiener’s SB 35, which seeks to expedite housing development in California. Wiener’s April 15 letter directed to Peter Cohen and Fernando Marti of the Council of Community Housing Organizations (CCHO) says he has “a major problem with any person or organization that disseminates misinformation and continues to do so even after being repeatedly corrected.”

In other words, Wiener is accusing CCHO’s leadership of lying about his bill. And he provides a point by point rebuttal to their arguments while noting that “several CCHO members and allied affordable housing partner organizations came out early to endorse SB 35, including Mercy Housing (CCHO member), Mission Housing (CCHO member), Bridge Housing, Non-Profit Housing Association of Northern California, and the California Council for Affordable Housing.”

Instead of allowing insider politics to derail SB 35, Wiener is challenging opponents to battle him on the merits of his ideas—and may the best ideas for addressing the state’s housing crisis win…

Noe Valley: No New Middle-Class Residents Allowed

Noe Valley has no signs on its borders barring new middle-class residents but it may as well. Home prices and rents are through the roof. Only the upper middle class and higher can now afford to buy a house or rent a vacant apartment… (more)

How are you supposed to build more housing in a completely developed neighborhood like Noe Valley without destroying what is there? How is the destruction worth the lower level of lifestyle and diminished quality of life we see in the city in the newly rebuilt neighborhoods? Why should anyone want to change what they feel is perfect just to make room for millionaires to store their money in new dense, units? When the major driving force is money, it is hard to believe there will be a happy ending for the residents who are being threatened by the greed, especially the tenants.